The purpose of this study will be to identify important factors that should be considered by faculty members at selected public institutions of higher education as they plan, design, develop, implement, and evaluate Internet-based courses, in order to make the courses responsive to the needs of students with disabilities. In addition, the study will explore perceptions of students with disabilities in terms of Internet-based courses offered at their institutions. A total of 17 faculty developers/teachers and 7 students with disabilities were interviewed. Qualitative methodology was used to analyze the data. The significance of this study lies within the legal and ethical obligations of public educational institutions. The growing population of students with disabilities identifies an area in which institutions must become familiar and be able to provide reasonable accommodations. Findings from this research indicate that: (1) students with disabilities are not enrolling in Internet courses in the same proportion as students without disabilities; (2) with few exceptions, students with disabilities need the same skills, abilities, and knowledge as other students to be successful in an online course; (3) certain appealing characteristics of online classes are consistent in the perceptions of faculty and the students with disabilities; and (4) audio components are the most commonly desired or requested item for enhancing the accommodations for students with disabilities. Several conclusions were determined from the interviews: (1) faculty awareness of students with disabilities needs to be addressed and increased; (2) faculty taking online courses are better able to understand the students' perspectives; (3) a student's personality is the determining factor in their success of an online course; (4) concerns with RODP problems should be investigated; and (5) certification of online courses should be advocated and required by administration. The results of this study will allow universities to better understand the needs of their students with disabilities, and the support and resources faculty will need to better accommodate those students in Internet courses.

Recent advancements in the speed and availability of the Internet have catapulted distance education into the forefront of possible economic education alternatives. Distance learning courses are taught exclusively over the Internet. Economics distance courses provide alternatives for economics students to traditional classroom instruction, and also invite new students to the discipline who may not have otherwise enrolled. An increase in the number of distance courses in the economics field has sparked a debate over the ability of distance courses to provide equivalent educational outcomes as traditional in-class courses. This study evaluates educational outcomes from a traditional section and two distance sections of introductory agricultural microeconomics courses, Economics of the Food and Fiber System (AAEC 1005), taught at Virginia Tech. The study compares student learning, attitudes and interests in economics, and perceptions of instructor effectiveness between traditionally taught students and those taught through distance education. Average exam scores, and common exam questions given to students in both course types, are the measures of student learning used in this study. Attitudes and interest are measured by student survey, and perceptions of instructor effectiveness are measured by student course evaluations. A variety of statistical tests are conducted comparing distance and traditional students in order to determine the influence of delivery method on educational outcomes. Results indicate that traditional students generally obtain higher grades on tests, and have a higher opinion of course instruction than distance students, suggesting that distance education is not an equivalent educational alternative to traditional classroom instruction. / Master of Science

The thesis inquires into the area of electronic education in the form of educational portals. It aims to carry out a research of educational portals on the Czech market and subsequent analysis of the portals, which offer users the services for the support of education and schooling. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on defining the terms of formal and non-formal education, describes examples of their usage. Furthermore, it deals with electronic education in the form of e-learning, defines e-learning from different points of view, and describes its historical development, forms and instruments. The work then analyses 17 portals, two of them in detail -- they represent both formal and non-formal education. The analysis offers information about portals' administrators, range of offered services as well as business models, used by the portals.